[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by ashvek3141

I don’t really feel it’s necessary to change the oil during the 1st service. For these modern cars I feel 1500 kms is nothing. Anyway, I would suggest to stick to the manufacture’s reccomendations with regards to this. Should be fine.

Yeah, same feeling here. I would stick to manufacturers recommendation.

Originally Posted by midazolam

Congratulations on the wonderful car, wish you and you loved ones countless safe and happy miles with the car.
Does any one have any information on the LED upgrade that Hyundai is offering?

Thank you midazolam

[TheGearBox]

Congrats on the new ride! The Venue offers everything a Creta does in a smaller package. It is definitely the logical choice among the compact SUVs. Wish you many happy miles and memories.

[adityabenz]

Hey @xaos636 Firstly, Congratulations. Wonderful Choice. Welcome to the Venue.

Fellow Venue Owner here.

I had Test driven the Venue in 2019 May. when i was looking at a replacement for my 2015 Vento TDI DSG. I had driven 1.05lakh km on it and one day at a Traffic Signal the gearbox gave way and i had no hope. (a month and INR 1.5l and some annoyance later the car was ready) ( Elite motors have the WORST service experience in all the brand cars that i have encountered ).

Then i was waiting for the KIA Seltos that had Just Launched and was waiting with Drool for the Top End DCT Seltos and then the Price Bomb Dropped it was way beyond my budget. and back to the Venue.

I finally finished all formalities in Jan second week and managed to get a good deal on the BS IV variant.

I personally am not too sold on the looks, but hey, i would be spending more time inside it and so its okay.

Your Review is fantastic.

My only issue with this otherwise fantastic city car is the Audio Experience. The ARKAMYS system produces fairly good audio, but Hyundai hasn't taken care of the door vibration on Mid- Low frequency and when you play any audio above volume 10 the experience gets a bit annoying. I did get Hyundai India to respond on twitter and the service team at Advaith Hyundai did try to resolve to their best. but this definitely needs an aftermarket vibration damping solution.

Cheers. Drive Safe. May the force be with you.

[GBX]

Congrats on the Venue. It's one of Hyundai's best cars here IMO.

Kerala's dealer yards look so clean and lush that I thought this was taken at some sort of official event at a resort. Almost good enough to hold politicians during election time!

Originally Posted by Xaos636

Picking my car from the yard after PDI. Lots of blue to add confusion
Attachment 2020891

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by TheGearBox

Congrats on the new ride! The Venue offers everything a Creta does in a smaller package. It is definitely the logical choice among the compact SUVs. Wish you many happy miles and memories.

Thank you TheGearBox.

Originally Posted by adityabenz

Hey @xaos636 Firstly, Congratulations. Wonderful Choice. Welcome to the Venue.
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.
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Cheers. Drive Safe. May the force be with you.

Thank You Aditya. And congratulations to you too for getting one. Yours is a manual this time or a DCT? And yes, the sound system is great and as you said, I have noticed the mild vibration from doors when music is at a decent volume. I was made aware of this by sales advisor before hand when I noticed the same on the test drive car. Maybe we need to look at the 3M acoustic solutions.

Originally Posted by GBX

Congrats on the Venue. It's one of Hyundai's best cars here IMO.

Thank You GBX. Yes they have a pretty decent yard, with covered parking for their big guns like the Tucson, Elantra etc straight opposite to where the Venues were parked. Attaching a glimpse of it as well. I did ask them to get covered parking for all the cars as it doesn't need to stand in the rain and sun

[adityabenz]

@xaos636, DCT itself, as 70% of its life would be spent in commute through Hosur Road to Bannerghatta Road.

If you do get any leads on the 3M accoustics please tag me as well.

Although i would love a manual. Like the Polo, the poor After Sales of VW Group cars. i may never look that way till they get a better Customer Friendly team.

Cheers.

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by adityabenz

@xaos636, DCT itself, as 70% of its life would be spent in commute through Hosur Road to Bannerghatta Road.

If you do get any leads on the 3M accoustics please tag me as well.

Although i would love a manual. Like the Polo, the poor After Sales of VW Group cars. i may never look that way till they get a better Customer Friendly team.

Cheers.

I still think the Hyundai DCT could be a far more reliable unit compared to some other manufacturers thanks to the not too fun kind of tuning. The key is to turn to N or P during long stops in traffic. So far apart from a Seltos DCT actuator failure, I haven't come across any other issues with the DCT(except overheat sign on the meter of-course). I have seen a few DCT units of Venue run around 35k kms and a few Seltos DCT run around 55k kms without any issues but again, these numbers are too early to come to any strong conclusions.

On the Acoustic solutions, I had a call with 3M Calicut today. They said they does the Acoustic solutions, but haven't done for the Venue yet. I thought I would go ahead with it and before that I thought I would give a call to Hyundai sales team to inform them about the same. They asked me to come there and the service manager with a mechanic accompanied me on a short drive and they understood the issue and acknowledged the same. They told me they will do padding through out all 4 doors and the boot during first service. Called 3M and informed this and they asked me to come if I couldn't find a solution at Hyundai. Now the wait for first service is on. Have completed 800kms as of now. Will keep the thread updated regarding the same.

[ashvek3141]

Originally Posted by Xaos636

On the Acoustic solutions, I had a call with 3M Calicut today. They said they does the Acoustic solutions, but haven't done for the Venue yet.

Hi Xaos!
Just curious to know from your mention about getting the damping; does your Venue too have the irritating issue of door trim vibration for music with slightly higher bass? I have noticed this in my friend's Venue and I tell you it's really annoying! This doesn't happen with all the tracks, but primarily with the one's having slightly higher bass then the vocals.
I was thinking of getting this checked at Hyundai SC.

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by ashvek3141

Hi Xaos!
Just curious to know from your mention about getting the damping; does your Venue too have the irritating issue of door trim vibration for music with slightly higher bass? I have noticed this in my friend's Venue and I tell you it's really annoying! This doesn't happen with all the tracks, but primarily with the one's having slightly higher bass then the vocals.
I was thinking of getting this checked at Hyundai SC.

Hello there. I can confirm that I too have the same issue. A little search of facebook owners group made it clear that 90% of Venue’s with Arkamys sound mood has this issue, perhaps the rest 10% goes unnoticed. Please check with the Hyundai SC and let me know what they say. In my case they said they will add additional damping to the door panels. Not sure if this is going to solve the issue. Apparently many got the speakers changed under warranty but the new speakers also had the same issue. This is really a lack of quality check/proper testing from Hyundai’s side.

[Xaos636]

Just a quick update on the registration part. I had booked a number for the car and was allotted to me yesterday and got a message confirming the same. The temporary registration of the car ends tomorrow and to make things worse, the RTO office and all the surroundings have come under containment zone as of yesterday evening and all activities including vehicle movements, opening shops, normal working of RTO has been suspended indefinitely. I was planning to get the car to RTO for physical inspection today, but as things stand,I will have to wait until these specific places has been removed from containment zone altogether. Hope the RTO wont fine me for registering it beyond the expiry of temporary registration.

[Xaos636]

First service update. 1 Month, 1500 kms

Nothing major here. As of today, completed first service and 1500kms. If it wasn't for Covid-19, the car would have been around 5000kms now. The only issue I had was rattles from door pads. Apart from this issue, the car has been running flawlessly. Completed 1500kms, one month after purchase. I am getting around 20kpl on the highway with the lightest of foot and around 12kpl in moderate traffic. With 50% city and 50% highway run, I see that the MID displays around 16kpl as average and this seems pretty close in accuracy as well as tank full to tank full gave me around 15.7kpl.

The service was done at Apco Hyundai, Calicut, Kerala. The service advisor Mr.Bijumon was a knowledgeable person and my interactions with him was above average. Room for improvement is there regarding updating the status of the vehicle, but other than that, no complaints. My air purifier, which conked off on the third day has been replaced under warranty after 30 days and they said that this is an improved version of the same, well lets see how it goes.

- Registration is still not done after one month, thanks to RTO being under red zone and closed for over 3 weeks now. Hopefully the zone is removed and everything gets back to normal.

- The doors are heavy and well built. My wife finds it tough to push it when opening because Baleno's doors were feather light. The bumpers doesn't flex when pressure applied, the bonnet is heavy as well.

- 3M underbody coating, done by the dealer as compliment wasn't a job well done! Need re application at some areas, but I had expected this. Waiting for the rain to go away as its totally Orange alert down here and literally cannot take another flood.

- Understanding the DCT more, I have been extremely happy with the controlled nature of the gearbox in AT mode, and its explosive nature once put in the manual mode. Overtaking is literally faster than a manual with this mode. The shifts happen in a split second.

- The brakes could have been a lot better, perhaps because I am used to all 4 discs of the Baleno RS which were simply class leading. Export variant of the Venue gets all 4 discs. I would have paid more for it.

- Rear leg space isn't negligibly small as many online reviews suggest, this was primarily done when they chopped off the length of the car to fit in the 4m tax bracket. US model has much better rear leg room space, but this cannot be a deal breaker because none of my occupants has complained about it, yet!

- The body roll is very much controlled and handling around corners are much better than I expected. Its a mix between comfort and sportiness and I guess the Sonet would be a bit more stiffer than the Venue.

- Once in the turbo range, the car literally sees 3 digit speeds in the blink of any eye. I couldn't go above 115kph yet as the roads here doesn't allow that. But as things stand, keeping it in mid range and in manual mode should be a lot of fun.

- The seats deserve a special mention. It feels hard compared to my Maruti, but the side bolstering is easily 100 miles ahead. The RS's seats were too soft, but this is right up there with one of the best seat cushioning and I am not going to use any covers as I loved the detailing on the seat upholstery.

- The door pad sounds were attended to by the service center and have vanished as I type this. I did not have any hope on this one, but they did the job pretty well as it looks. I am now looking at damping all four doors. Investigations on the brands and the changes it can make for masking the outside sound are already ON. Thinking of doing it as DIY.

- I had asked the dealer about the sliding armrest and rear seat bed with 60:40 split seats. Armrest is 9k INR, and seat bed is 35k INR. So there it goes. I am literally not going to do these.

- I am really investigating on the Paddle shifts. The dealers are clueless and I don't blame them since they are also seeing paddles for the first time. But once I find a friend who has Creta with paddles (or a new Venue with paddles), I will try for a swap and see if it works without any connections like in Polo GT. Still in the dark regarding the same. If there are wiring changes, I wont be going for the steering with paddles. As of now, one dealer has promised to check with R&D team and confirm if its a direct swap, but the promised dates are already over, so have little hope on it. More to follow.

[Xaos636]

DIY Sound proofing and Debadging

So as explained in the previous post, small vibes from the doors were fairly taken care of by the Hyundai service team(Not 100%, but they did try it) but my mind was still ringing on getting the sound proofing done. Most shops were asking a whole lot of sum to fix damping sheets with 3M quoting the lowest at just under 7k INR to a few car shops going as far as 18k INR, just for 4 doors.

Called up a friend(Mr. Siya Latheef) who runs a car accessory shop in Calicut, named Zero6 Customs and he too admitted that he hasn't done that yet, but we could together do it as a DIY. We then investigated on which brand to use and talked with a few experts on the decent ones available. Decided to go with Hamaan damping sheets which had decent reviews from real time users and were just a bit more than 2mm thick. The other brands include STP, Blaupunkt, Vibromax, 3M etc. He ordered 3 boxes which contained a total of 15 sheets(5 per box). As he had the right connections, I got the sheets at dealer cost(dealers usually sell at a small margin extra for customers) and zero fitting charges. We both spent a week watching YouTube and speaking with various other persons who had experience fitting these.

First plan was to DIY from any one of our homes, but all the tools and stuff being at his shop, we decided to move there and do it.




First thing first, decided to start with the driver door itself, and it was the toughest one with lot of wires going in. The door pad is fixed with just a screw and several fiber lock nuts. Remove the screw and pull out the door pad and there it is. This is when we saw what Hyundai had did at the first service when I complained about the sound from doors. They added small piece of stickers at various touch points. Yes it was effective, but could have been a lot better if they added a sponge or a thicker sticker instead of the thin ones.

This is how it looked once the door pad was removed. Comes with a plastic sheet to stop water entry into the door pad area.




Inside of the driver side door pad. The marked stickers were added by Apco Hyundai when they tried to stop the vibration.


The Hamaan damping sheets.




How we masked it. Took in a lot of time to cut the sheets and attach to the door pad. Yes, the gum behind it is very effective and wont come off easily!


We did not have a roller to make the sheet stick to its place, so we used the back of a screw driver.


The inside of the door once applied.




As sticking and then cutting was taking a lot of time, we decided to first take the measurement, cut the sheet and then apply which also helped us to reduce wastage of the damping sheet.


The front driver side door fully covered now.


The stock plastic cover fixed back. This step can be skipped as the damping sheet itself blocks water entry, but we were just making it double sure.


So were the other doors too. Other doors did not take much time as the first one. It was more of a learning stage with the first one.






And now the boot as well.






So even now if one isn't happy with the sound from the speaker, then you got only one choice which is to get new speakers! The head unit is great on the Venue and the unbranded stock speakers can do it for an average Joe like me, but music enthusiasts should upgrade. I have tried the Bose system in Seltos, but that was also nothing great to talk about. Some great speakers could do the trick. The stock one is a generic unbranded one. It does the duty though.


A small sound (like a safety pin vibrating against a metal part) was coming from the B-Pillar, we tried our best including tightening of the seat belt attachments and damping the B pillar itself, the sound is reduced, but still present. Again this isn't always there, but rarely comes out and we were unable to find its source, Hyundai too couldn't find the source of this sound, but we were able to contain it. Funny side is, only keen enthusiastic ones will hear it. So letting it go as of now.


On a rare clear sky in the month of August in Kerala. Flood almost returned for a 3rd year in a row, made a small visit and went back. Phew!


The below video is of the sound difference after applying damping sheets inside the door. This was just one layer done and still has a very noticeable difference in sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YVMqdA_hIU

Result: There are Zero sounds coming from the doors now, Zero. Every single of those door vibes have now vanished and the outside sounds creeping in has considerably reduced. The NVH levels of the car were already very good and this application has taken things a notch higher. The door shut sound is very 'German' now if I may put it that way. The boot is the big difference. I had to put a small pressure on the boot door for it to close properly, but now I just pull it and leave it and it shuts properly without any extra pressure applied. A total of 9 sheets were taken for 4 doors, averaging 2.25 sheets a door, including the door pad. A single sheet weighed almost 1kg, so all the doors are now heavy by atleast 2kgms. A solid thud and your peers finding it difficult to open the doors are classic examples of how much weight have been added to the doors. The music system genuinely feels upgraded after this, maybe its my mind but I feel a really good difference when playing songs now. The boot took one sheet making it 10 sheets in total. And not to mention, we took around 8 hours to do the job where an experienced shop typically takes 2-3 hours depending on manpower.

DeBadged
Never been a fan of the current trend with car names written with huge gap between them, I decided to remove the 'V E N U E' and 'SX' badge and keep the 'Hyundai logo' and the 'Turbo' badge. Heated it first and then removed it with a thread and as it was a new car it wasn't too difficult, but getting the gum off without a scratch needs patience.

The final Look.

[MSC]

Originally Posted by Xaos636

DIY Sound proofing and Debadging
Attachment 2044020

A small query from a fellow Venue owner. Do you have any idea regarding the size of stock speakers installed in doors? Are they 12 inchers or 13?
I was planning for speaker swap exercise but only held back by the out of control Covid cases.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by MSC

Do you have any idea regarding the size of stock speakers installed in doors?

They are 6.5" speakers.

[Xaos636]

Originally Posted by MSC

A small query from a fellow Venue owner. Do you have any idea regarding the size of stock speakers installed in doors? Are they 12 inchers or 13?
I was planning for speaker swap exercise but only held back by the out of control Covid cases.

They would be 6 inch or 7 inch as 12 or 13 would be too big for a speaker inside the door.

So it should be 6.5 inch as @a4anurag said.
I tried to take the measurement of a sub and it is 12 inchers. So speakers are definitely atleast half of this. Hope it helps.